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Gijs Limonard

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Gijs is Currently Reading

Gijs Limonard is currently reading

Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld

by Byung-Chul Han

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in February 2025

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Gijs Limonard said: " 4,5 stars; I catch myself constantly underlining quotes as the author has a way of putting his thoughts into pithy, meaningful statements; a more general observation; the author seems to rail against commodification of life per se, whether it be time 4,5 stars; I catch myself constantly underlining quotes as the author has a way of putting his thoughts into pithy, meaningful statements; a more general observation; the author seems to rail against commodification of life per se, whether it be time, narration, information, pain/sensation, love. He argues for actual presence in life, instead of whithering away in surrogate representations of life (which ties in neatly with his Zen buddhism background) and that's a message worth sharing. Be sure to check out his excellent: The Crisis of Narration.

"We are now in the habit of perceiving reality in terms of attraction and surprise. As information hunters, we are becoming blind to still, inconspicuous things, to what is common, the incidental and the customary – the things that do not attract us but ground us in being."

"Artificial intelligence is currently busy completely de-caring human existence by optimizing life and doing away with the future as a source of care, that is, by overcoming the future’s contingency. If we have a predictable future in the form of an optimized present, we need not care."

"The handless human beings of the future closely resemble the phono sapiens, busy on their smartphones. Smartphones are their playgrounds. It is almost as though the human being of the future will be entirely without ‘care’ – will only play and enjoy."

"Community as a commodity spells the end of community."

"Today’s world is very poor in gaze and voice. It neither looks at nor speaks to us. The world has lost its otherness. The digital screen determines our experience of the world and shields us from reality. The world is de-realized, de-reified and disembodied. The emboldened ego is no longer touched by the other. On the reverse of things, it sees only a reflection of itself. The disappearance of the other is actually a dramatic event. But it happens so gradually as to be imperceptible. The other as a secret, as a gaze, as a voice, disappears. The other, deprived of otherness, is reduced to an available, consumable object." ...more "

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— Feb 27, 2025 01:40PM

Mar 10, 2025 12:21PM · see review

Gijs Limonard is currently reading

Essays in Idleness: and Hojoki

by Yoshida Kenkō

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16 hours, 6 min ago

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The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World

by DanielYergin

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May 02, 2026 02:35AM

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Gijs’s Notes & Highlights

Oil (Beginner's Guides) by Vaclav Smil

5 highlights

The generic term ‘oil’ designates two very different kinds of compounds that are liquid at ambient temperature and normal atmospheric pressure. Crude oils (using the proper qualifying adjective and a plural whose importance will be ...more

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Gijs’s Quotes

“Walking thus, hour after hour, the senses keyed, one walks the flesh transparent. But no metaphor, transparent, or light as air, is adequate. The body is not made negligible, but paramount. Flesh is not annihilated but fulfilled. One is not bodiless, but essential body.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

27 likes

“Walking in mist tests not only individual self-discipline, but the best sort of interplay between persons.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

8 likes

“When the aromatic savour of the pine goes searching into the deepest recesses of my lungs, I know it is life that is entering. I draw life in through the delicate hairs of my nostrils.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

7 likes

“To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

20 likes